


Field Trip

by illumynare



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Owl Sector
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 06:08:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11983773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illumynare/pseuds/illumynare
Summary: Before they were Owl Sector, they were . . . kind of stupid.





	Field Trip

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JenCforCarolina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenCforCarolina/gifts).



> Jen was having a bad day and requested Young Owl Sector. I LIVE TO PLEASE. <3 <3 <3

"We're going to die," says Quist. There's a dead calm to his voice as he crouches next to his friends in the narrow subway tunnel, glancing forward and back.

"No, we're not," Shun contradicts cheerfully.

"Not before I pass my exams," says Beriole, still busily transcribing symbols from the wall.

Quist huffs out a breath. His hands remain steady on his rifle—he's the only one of them who actually knows how to shoot a gun—as he says, "You won't get good grades for stealing a ship from Tower and breaking who knows _how_ many regulations to visit a Crucible arena on Venus."

"And yet," says Beriole, "you're here with us."

"I'm just trying to keep you two Shank-chasing idiots alive," Quist grumbles.

"C'mon, look on the bright side," says Shun, daring to stick his head out for a peek over the nearby ledge.

" _What bright side?"_

"Ikora might be here?"

"That's only a bright side for _you,_ you cleft of the Tra—"

"Language," Beriole mutters, and then gasps, "Quist! _Look!"_

"I'll look when I'm— Oh." Quist's rifle lowers as he stares. "That's—"

"—Golden Age cryptography," Beriole gloats.

The two of them huddle together over her notes and the symbols she's scraped clean of moss on the wall. Shun, standing beside them, says, "I guess I'll keep watch, then."

They both ignore him.

Shun is used to that (from his friends, and also his family). Right now, he doesn't care. He's too entranced by Venus: the strange, salt-sweet smell of the air. The very slight, dream-like difference in the gravity. The strange way the sunset light feels like a rainbow.

Ikora has fought here. He has watched her in a hundred matches, and now he wonders if she loved the foreign taste of the air the way he does, or if it was nothing to her, she who has lived centuries and feels the Light of the Traveler in her veins.

He has a friend who has a cousin whose brother-in-law's friend had a sister. The sister died, and was raised as a Guardian.

She visited them a few times, Shun has heard from his friend's cousin's brother-in-law's friend. But she did not like to come back, and soon she stopped. She did not want to be reminded of what she once was—because no Guardian can ever remember the life she had before she died—

It has occurred to Shun, before now, that it's possible he might become a Guardian. But now, when he finally stands in a place where Guardians battle and kill each other, he glances back over his shoulder at his mortal friends.

He doesn't want to forget them.

He doesn't want to forget Ikora.

As he thinks that, he hears a gun cock behind his ear. He turns, and sees—

Ikora. Leveling Invective at his neck.

For the following decade, Shun will regret the words he says next:

"Hey, Korrie."

* * *

"It could have been worse," says Berriole, clutching her notebook to her chest.

"You're right," says Quist. "We _could_ have been cut into pieces and fed to the Hive."

"Probably easier to feed us to the Fallen," says Shun, looking out at the gleam of the City beneath them. They're standing in the courtyard of the Tower, after an extremely painful talk with the Vanguard.

Tomorrow they have to report for their orientation as new members of Owl Sector. Apparently the penalty for stealing one of the Vanguard's ships and trespassing on the Vanguard's Crucible is . . . to join the organization that protects the Vanguard.

It's what Shun has wanted for a long time: to serve and to protect the Guardians. But he can't think about them right now. He can't think about the pale, gleaming hulk of the Traveler overhead, either.

All he can think of is Ikora Rey, dragging him and his friends away from Venus. There was a moment when she looked over her shoulder and said, _Trespassing in the Crucible? You could have died._

 _We could have come back as Guardians,_ Shun had said.

And there was a curious to solemnity to Ikora as she replied, _That is not always a blessing._

It will be ten years before Shun—or anyone in the Last City or the Crucible—sees Ikora Rey again.


End file.
